Birthdays
by Mephiles
Summary: Oneshot, Sasori centric.  Three different birthdays in the lonely puppet genius, Sasori Akasuna's life.  Written as a tribute to my own birthday.


Mephiles: I wrote this oneshot because its my birthday today and I really like Sasori and have been watching him in the latest Shippuden episodes where he really kicks some serious ass, I love his fight in Episode 26! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and please drop a review.

Birthdays

"I am sorry Sasori, but I really can't make it, I'm sure you'll be all right," Chiyo said in as gentle a voice as she could muster, placing a comforting arm on the twelve-year old boy's mop of unruly, fiery hair. His hair, so vibrant and colourful, was in complete contrast to the large eyes which now stared solemnly up at his Grandmother, small and pale, as if sickly, devoid of almost all feeling. Sasori gave a small nod of understanding, turning his attention back towards the floor, suddenly fascinated with whatever lay upon it, his pale and lifeless eyes growing ever dimmer, as Chiyo lifted her hand from her grandson's head.

An uneasy silence surrounded the two, growing steadily more and more awkward as they remained standing, neither willing to look the other in the face, each afraid in turn of what the other might find. Chiyo sighed, turning away to the exit of the house, her old and withered heart shriveling just a little bit more, but it really couldn't be helped, it was an extremely important meeting and she had to attend.

She gave a last sorrowful look back towards the melancholic boy, wishing that their was something that she could do, but the meeting was a matter of Village security, no matter how precious her dear son's child was to her she had to uphold her loyalties to the village, those were the teachings of the Hidden Sand, everything had to be sacrificed for the Village. She knew these teachings well, she had written most of them with the help of Ebizu, she had just never imagined that they would happen at such an inopportune of times.

* * *

A 12-year old Sasori watched miserably as his grandmother, the last and only link he had to his late parents, vanished from the room, closing the door tightly behind him. Sasori gave a wretched little sigh as the room fell deathly still, devoid of all the warmth and joy that a child of his age should have been surrounded by. His pale eyes stared out sullenly at the world around him, filled with more remorse than was possible to describe, an infinite fount of sadness seemed to flow outwards from him, and the very air around him was heavy with melancholy.

Sasori strode towards one of the circular windows in his bedroom, its shining surface glowing with the faint light of the setting sun, particles of dust streamed past it as the wind gently caressed the desert sand, coaxing it off the ground, giving it but a glimpse of glory, allowing it to soar on the wind, to see all the things far beneath it, before dropping it back down, forsaking it like so many broken hopes and promises, dropping it back down towards the ground where it would be lost amongst a sea of identical copies.

Sasori watched on sadly, staring out his window at the people so far below him, like the sand below the wind. _'No one ever bothers to pay attention to the sand,' _he thought to himself miserably as happy families walked below him, smiling and laughing together as they admired the beauty of the sunset, always looking up, never looking down, after all it was only sand.

Sasori watched enviously as they giggled, as they chuckled, laughing their meaningless little lives away, mesmerized by the serene sky, the way the setting sun made the clouds turn such delightful shades of colour. _'Always looking up, people can never be satisfied with what they got,' Sasori_ thought to himself, as the people played beneath him like such insignificant little puppets.

'_Puppets?' _Sasori smirked to himself, a strange expression on his normally sullen face, completely out of place and disturbing, but refusing to go anywhere else, the smirk remained triumphant on his face. They were puppets nothing more, just little toys below him, nowhere near as important as him, now if only he had strings. Sasori giggled to himself quietly as he played his fun new game, imagining the people all moving how he wanted them to, pretending to control them, immensely impressed with his own creativity and intelligence.

But even that didn't keep him entertained for long; nothing could keep him entertained for long, he tired of games very quickly, abandoning them after only one or two attempts. Admittedly this was because he could usually win any game within the first two attempts, but still, a child of his age couldn't be expected to entertain himself all the time, especially on his very own birthday. _'My birthday,'_

Birthdays were meant to be spent with friends and family, to be enjoyed and remembered. Sasori was sure that you weren't meant to wallow away in self-pity your whole Birthday, but his experience on the matter was very limited. His family were all dead, only Chiyo remained and she was gone, and as for friends…Sasori had never really understood that concept. Sasori's eyes grew hard, a strange coldness slowly growing through them, robbing them of what little life and enthusiasm they had previously held, as he turned to stared calmly down towards the door through which Chiyo had exited. If no one was going to celebrate his Birthday, then he would just have to rectify that situation in the only way he knew.

* * *

Sasori opened the door cautiously; focused on each and every little noise as the door slowly creaked inwards, the darkness within it slowly lifting as outside light carefully crawled in, as if almost afraid to reveal what lay within. Sasori strode into the room with light steps, making sure to keep as quiet and hidden as he could, making his way to the small workbench Chiyo had only ever allowed him to work at once so far.

He sat down, slowly familiarizing himself with the feel of the chair again, remembering where the tools were from the last time he had been in the puppet room. Content with his decision Sasori took out some wood, freshly cut and exquisitely carved, lifting a nearby screw as he made delicate and precise incisions into the fine surface of the wood, careful to make not a single mistake.

He didn't have any friends so he would have to make some, his own friends who could never just abandon him, friends who could always be put back together if they were broken, friends who would remain with him forever, never aging, never leaving, never dying.

Sasori worked long and hard, his small hands moving from tool to tool, each and every independent block of wood soon sculpted away, a beautiful limb or puppet seemingly emerging from it, as if he was not so much carving as he was releasing the puppet. But the longer he worked the worse he felt. With each hammer blow, each saw, each nail, he felt worse and worse. Pain seemed to shoot into him, not the type of pain you could cure with an ointment, or which bled and healed, this was a different pain, a pain that had sat in his heart for years, and now it was festering.

There was only one way to cure it, Sasori somehow just knew there was only one way to cure it, and that was love. Wasn't that what Chiyo always said? Well to get love he first needed to make friends, lots of friends, he'd have so much love he could die from it, just they wait, all of them, he didn't need them because he had his friends. His friends with spikes, lots of spikes, and poison needles and tails…no, even better, scorpion tails!

Sasori smiled, he loved scorpions.

* * *

A 19-year old Sasori groaned in frustration as he looked down at his uniform, now stained with blood and gore, dripping down him like grotesque mockeries of rain and tears, sliding to the floor where they landed with a disgustingly soft squelch noise, quivering and shuddering as if terrified. Sasori threw a look of loathing at the puppet on the table behind him, blood still leaking from its many orifices, annoyed at the lengths to which he had to go to hide his art.

'_Stupid idiots just can't see what Puppetering is all about,' _he thought to himself, snorting derisively as he remembered his idiotic and near-sighted companions in the puppet-core. But it wasn't just them anymore, even his own grandmother, whom he had once held in such high regards, could no longer meet his high expectations.

Sasori made his way to a small basin in his work room, carefully striping away the blood stained clothes, careful to make sure he got none of it on himself, his peers were already suspicious of the vanishings, he didn't need to give them anymore reason to suspect him.

He sighed as he washed his long surgical knife, making sure that was completely clean, he barely even registered the small nick he accidentally cut into his own hand, not that he felt any pain mind you, not anymore at least. Sasori drew the hand closer toward him. A puppet hand. Almost impossible to distinguish from a normal human hand, but Sasori could see the differences; he had always been able to see the differences. It was only one hand though, it wasn't like he was intending to turn his entire body into a puppet or anything crazy like that, he just needed a bit of room with which to explore and plumb the true depths of his creativity.

* * *

"I'm warning you Deidara this better be good," Sasori growled threateningly from within the confines of Hiruko, staring out grumpily at his blonde and annoying partner in crime, a lacking replacement to the calm and collected Orochimaru, but it was the best he had.

'Don't worry Sasori-danna, I promise you'll love it, un," Deidara assured him with his usual devilish smirk, sounding as confident as ever, his long blonde fringe hanging over his one eye, whilst the other, pencil gray, flashed with amusement and mirth. Sasori merely grumbled as he followed along behind Deidara, carefully maneuvering himself from deep within the empty cavernous interior of Hiruko, wondering if it was really worth it to go through with whatever nonsense, for that was invariably all that Deidara ever did ended up as, the blonde madman had planned for him.

The two Akatsuki members continued on for a short while, Deidara suppressing small giggles and chuckles along the way, whilst Sasori merely shook his head and rolled his eyes at his friends, by now, familiarly immature behavior, finding himself thinking not for the first time that it might have been better if he had just let him kill himself against Itachi

"Here we are Sasori-danna, un," Deidara announced proudly, leading Sasori into a brightly lit room with a wide smile, his blonde hair shining golden in the light of innumerable candles.

'What's this…" Sasori got no further, as the sight before him was possibly the most frightening sight he had ever seen in his life.

"SURPRISE!" The Akatsuki shouted, emerging from behind various pieces of furniture, Kisame merrily waving a cup of sake far above his head, already tipsy, next to him Itachi stood emotionless as ever, a pink and white party hat positioned on his head, Kakuzu stood with several presents in hand, watching the scene with no small measure of pride, after all he had planned the finances for the entire thing. Beside him Hidan was already swearing loudly at the large and expansive looking Juke box, cursing it for not playing Jashin holy death music, and instead spitting out heretical crap, in the fact the only reason he hadn't attacked the thing already was that his body was standing inert next to Kakuzu, whilst his head, blood dripping from his neck had been positioned next to the Juke box. Zetsu stood silently, a small smile on his face, a little party horn in his mouth as he tooted away at it happily, like a kitten with some string. Behind it all Pein and Konan stood beaming at their subordinates, holding hands in the darkness like a proud couple of parents.

Faced with the most feared and dangerous of all shinobi in the know world, party gifts and streamers and other garish and bright colours surrounding them, Sasori could only muster a single reaction.

"What's wrong with Sasori?" Zetsu inquired as Hiruko slowly slumped to the floor.

"Think he fainted, un," Deidara answered casually, shrugging his shoulders in disinterest.

"Does that mean the parties off?" Kakuzu inquired, peeved that all his precious money might have gone to waste.

"The party's far from over," Sasori answered, calmly steeping out of the now motionless Hiruko, his red hair messy as always as he slowly removed his cloak, revealing the plethora of traps beneath it, a knowing smirk on his face. The rest of the Akatsuki watched on silently as Sasori moved towards the center of the room. He looked about himself, remembering something from long ago. _'Surrounded by friends and family eh?' _well at least this time he had friends, one out of two wasn't bad was it?

'This parties just getting started," He stated firmly, earning a sweat drop from his own partner whilst Kisame gave a loud whistle and Itachi gave a small twitch of the corners of his mouth.

Kakuzu sighed in relief whist Hidan…went on doing whatever it was he was doing.

'Who's up for karaoke?" Kakuzu asked loudly, holding up a mike in one hand.

"Me,"

"…"

"Me first, un,"

"Fuck you!"

"No me," 

Everyone immediately stepped aside as Zetsu walked forward and took the mike, smirking.

Sasori smiled, giving his partner an appreciative look before saying,

"You realize that this is a special occasion, I'm not always going to be this nice to you so don't get used to it okay brat," Sasori said.

"They look so happy," Konan said with a small sigh, turning to Pein with a smile. Pein nodded, giving a smile of his own, well there was only one thing to do now. He coughed as he placed a pair of bright pink, star-shaped sunglasses on. It was time to party!

Spending the entire night partying with his fellow missing-nin, Sasori came to a very important realization, happiness wasn't limited to certain people, anyone could have it, they just needed to look for it in the right place. It was the best birthday he ever had.

* * *

Mephiles:

Thanks for reading, hope you liked it, please drop a review


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